The X-Files: Series 1, First Half

One of the advantages of being a teacher is that you do have a fair amount of time in the summer. One of the things I've done (along with walk a 100km long distance trail, visit Ireland, read a lot, and belatedly do some work) is begun watching the X-Files.

I actually remember watching the pilot episode. I can only have been five or six; BBC Two must have been repeating it. I distinctly remember watching Mulder standing in the pouring rain, pointing excitedly at a patch of road where he had felt time skip. I also remember hiding behind a pillow, despite my Dad assuring me it wasn't scary. I can only presume he chased me to bed before the end of the episode then. I also saw the 2008 film I Want to Believe. I can honestly say I remember *nothing* about it. There may have been snow in it, but beyond that, I have no idea.

I've heard only good things, so I borrowed the first series off my brother on DVD. Halfway through sending him the 19th text about it, I decided to put down my musings. Here are the results.

Pilot

• Why on Earth did they visit that crime scene at night?!
• I am never going to Oregon.
• Was the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark full by 1993?

Deep Throat

• The 90s called, they want their credit sequence back.
• The entire Western USA must be entirely full of hippies, cultists, millenarians, and aliens...

Squeeze

• WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS IN THAT SEWER??
• What would happen if Mr Fantastic was a force for evil.
• WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?!

Conduit

• Nice picture of Bill Clinton on the walls of the FBI offices.
• Seriously, why visit the creepy woods *AT NIGHT*?!?
• Add hell's angels to the people that are running amock in rural USA.

Jersey Devil

• Add New Jersey to the list of places to *NEVER* visit...
• Is there any police department that Mulder hasn't wound up yet?
• The sheer awkwardness when Scully told Mulder she has a date only confirms she has made the wrong choice...
• Scully has a pager...

Shadows 

• Whoever these people are, they clearly don't know Mulder very well to think they can drag him in in the small hours, shown him a corpse with a mysterious cause of death, and not expect him to go chasing after this...
• Someone has nicked the incidental music from The Fugitive.
• A sinister Matilda.
• Scully never seems to see the spooky sinister stuff. How convenient...

Ghost in the Machine

• A computers story from 1993. What can possibly go wrong? (N.B. There was a dialling tone at one stage, and a floppy disk. And that's without mentioning Mulder's laptop...).
• The Will Smith I, Robot film, but done properly.
• Steve Jobs could easily have sued for libel...
• I'd love to meet a techno-anarchist...
• The smart home, two decades before it became a reality.

Ice

• A cold Blair Witch Project opening. 
• Icy Cape, was Sinister Snows taken? 
• That bloke from 24 and Apollo 13, he gets everywhere!
• Scully looks like a cold Princess Leia. 
• For once, I'm with Scully; incinerate that Godforsaken thing... 
• Nice Walkman. 
• Oh yeah, throw the bullets in the snow... 
• I don't think I breathed through most of that, it was that good. 

Space

• Nice bit of 70s throwback at the start.
• The Martian face always creeped me out, glad it isn't just me.
• This episode is my childhood in a nutshell. 90s NASA, the shuttle and space probes! 
• Mulder is me, great big giddy kid with the space programme. 
• The line "I need access to your records!" has never been uttered during a space emergency before or since 
• Unlike Apollo 13, I didn't know the ending; again, very little breathing... 

Fallen Angel

• Great, now Wisconsin is on the list... 
• Wow, that NORAD bloke was sinister... 
• This is high end government conspiracy stuff- Evolution meets Predator
• You know it's good when Scully's first appearance is getting Mulder out of a cell... 
• Like Alan Partridge, Mulder has a Number 1 fan... 
• Gillian Anderson should have got an Emmy for the look on her face when she found out that Mulder writes into UFO magazines under a poor pseudonym. 
• Oh dear, maybe Mr Helpful isn't as helpful as he appears... 

Eve

• Well that's a terrifying start... 
• Scully's mobile is excellent, I had a friend who had a tribute one... 
• I love they have to explain what IVF is... 
• Who *IS* Mr Helpful?! 
• Excellent, more high end conspiracy stuff.
• This is even more impressive when you think it was four years before Dolly the Sheep. 
• First gunshot discharged? I like the lack of reliance on firearms. 
• Oh good grief, super-intelligent child murderer clones- not the best thing to watch before going back to school... 

Fire

• Oh good, 90s rural England, as imagined by Americans. 
• Yeah, Scully gave Mulder's ex the look she deserves. 
• Mulder had to spell out what the IRA was. 
• The FBI's arson expert needs to get out more. 
• Hang on, did they just show the answer a mere 15mins in?! 
• Oh good, at least there's some character development.
• Mulder, you're much better off with Scully, rather than this lunatic... 
• I have never seen anyone look less comfortable in a tuxedo than Mulder. 
• See, who sits with you when you're ill?!

Overall Observations

This is very much a series of its time. The culture of distrusting the government, and its expression in out of the way places in the rural United States, comes through very clearly. It isn't a huge jump to believe 'weird goings on in Nowheresville, Idaho' when the memories of Watergate, Iran-Contra, Ruby Ridge and the Waco Siege were still fresh in the national psyche.

By my rough count, it took until episode 11 for anyone to shoot at them. Modern American dramas involving law enforcement officers often don't last 11 minutes without a character discharging their weapons. I like it this way, makes it less of a shoot 'em up and more about the quality of the storylines.

It has stood the test of time remarkably well. 1993 is now a very long time ago, and yet you don't seem to notice the technological gulf which separates us from them. The clothing may be hilarious (Mulder appears to have raided M&S' '90s Man' range), the technology may be laughable, but yet you see straight through it.

Scully's facial expressions should have won Gillian Anderson an award. The relationship between the two of them makes for compelling viewing. And dear God it was scary in places. There were episodes I didn't breathe, or hid behind the sofa.

Overall, a very impressive start. I am definitely hooked. As Mulder's office wall declares, I Want to Believe.